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October 2014

31 October 2014

In 31oct14 WSJ article of the same name Kate Bachelder lists and expands on the ten high ranking pre-evidential and counter-evidential beliefs that our progressive cadres have accepted as revealed truth. They have done this with an intensity and a 'reasonable basis' equal to that of the most devout fundamental Christians whom they deplore. Ms Bachelder reminds us again that – “A hallmark of progressive politics is the ability to hold fervent beliefs, in defiance of evidence, that explain how the world works—and why liberal solutions must be adopted.”

Regular readers will recognize that all of these items have been extensively covered and debated in these pages. I think that seeing these ten (there are, of course, more) in one place is useful as we go to the polls next Tuesday. The bases for these beliefs being called superstitions are also summarized in the article (here).

28 October 2014

There’s a major and potentially harmful debate about the function and effect of quarantine in securing America against the ingress and spread of Ebola. It all spins around a significant misunderstanding of duty and volunteerism, primarily suffered by our politically correct cadres.

Everyone agrees that Ebola must be stopped in its African hotzone, and that requires the massive help from developed countries – mostly America and the EU. Most people (although not so many in our federal government) understand the ability of Ebola to infect in its asymptomatic and symptomatic phases. Few at policy making levels in government recognize that current temperature measuring and self-reporting measures at entry airports are an ineffective approach to keep Ebola out – the Obama administration maintains that “there is no gap” in such security measures.

The obvious security measure is to impose a 21-day quarantine on people entering from the hotzone. But that is resisted by policy makers arguing that imposing such a quarantine on returnees would immediately reduce the ranks of the otherwise dedicated healthcare workers who would volunteer for the hotzone. Why? Well, the argument, by those who probably have volunteered little and are dedicated primarily to their government careers, is that adding such a quarantine to the end of their hotzone duty would deter the dedicated volunteers.

Nothing could be further from the truth. If everyone considering such volunteering knows ahead of time that they would spend 21 days in some form of comfortable confinement, either at home or at a well-appointed quarantine facility, then they would simply factor that into their service plans. And moreover, most such workers would understand and even possibly insist that they remain in a confined and regularly monitored environment after having been potentially exposed to Ebola. I know that I would and in the past have factored in such delays that bookend deployments and travel overseas. (Military and even corporate personnel schedule such extensions as a matter of course.) I most certainly would not want to come back from the hotzone directly into the loving embraces of my family and others I hold most precious. Everyone I have consulted about this attitude agrees that it is a no-brainer everywhere but within the tentacles of Team Obama where only political considerations are paramount.

(A moment’s thought reveals that historically factoring in such long and sometime arduous delays have always been a matter of course when the reward from arriving or returning has been sufficient. Presaged and planned comfortable quarantine is no different. Today’s policy quagmire over such factors reflects the a larger disease that already afflicts our society.)

[29oct14 update] Holman Jenkins in this morning's WSJ asks 'Why no Ebola travel ban? Politics', and expands while confirming the points made above and before on these pages. The inevitable conclusion is that there will be a flood of potential Ebola carriers into the US under Obama's current "no gap" security plan to keep the epidemic out of America. Jenkins observes that -

The danger of medical personnel, even as they arrive in the stricken countries in larger numbers, bringing the disease back with them is surely shrinking. The danger posed by locals fleeing Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone carrying the virus with them is likely increasing—and may increase dramatically if current forecasts are borne out.

West Africans are learning too: how and when transmission is likely to occur; that a 10-day window exists before symptoms become observable; that their survival chances are much greater in a Western hospital; that they would be unwise to mention any contact with Ebola patients until safely in the arms of Western medicine.

As more observers start thinking and informing people about how politics obviously trumps reason (and science), the chances are that this poll driven administration will install security measures that have a chance of stopping the spread of Ebola in the US.

[30oct14 update] Now we hear that our military leadership definitely thinks that quaranteeing troops returning from the Ebola hotzone is a good idea, and have implemented a program to do just that (more here).

25 October 2014

Conservative intellect and commentator Dinesh D’Souza was convicted of a campaign violation that is laughably minor compared to ones that have been committed more numerously by liberals in similar circumstances. Predictably, the liberals have had their wrists slapped and continued with business as usual. D’Souza instead faced jail time and was sentenced to eight months supervised detention and five years’ probation. During the day he was free to travel anywhere with permission as long as he was back in San Diego by the end of the day. This is how he continued making speeches (his prime income), and performed community service tutoring.

However, a trip to do an interview with Fox News Megyn Kelly – all accomplished in one day – raised the ire of liberal power brokers who demanded that the judge ‘clarify’ D’Souza’s sentence so as to restrict his movements to San Diego County with no more media interviews or speeches or tutoring save by explicit permission of the judge. So as in the case of the liberals' assault of conservative organizations in Wisconsin, D'Souze also has effectively been muffled above and beyond the constraints of his original sentence (more here) by the Left's cynical use of our judicial system.

This again demonstrates how the judiciary has become politicized by the Left who are now able to go back and have re-sentencing imposed when the original sentence no longer suits them. The factors that led to D’Souza’s indictment and conviction are another matter that has been well covered over the last year, we won’t repeat it. But I do want to draw the attention of readers to our steady march toward an autocratic cum tyrannical state. More here.

Obama administration’s mismanagement of the Ebola epidemic has now reached new depths of incompetence. The governors of New York and New Jersey have overridden the ineffective federal security procedures to impose their own executive orders quarantining travelers from Africa’s Ebola hotzone. It is literally incomprehensible that our federal government has not done ANYTHING to slow the flow of Ebola carriers into the country.

With this week’s arrival of Dr Craig from West Africa, who immediately became symptomatic and admitted himself to a Manhattan hospital, we have clear evidence that the government’s management of this crisis is carried out by hacks and imbeciles whose only concern is how the day-to-day ‘optics’ will play out on the Democrats’ performance in the upcoming election.

Can you imagine that today it is just as easy for anyone to replicate the entry of Mr Thomas Duncan, patient one who died of Ebola in Texas over a month ago. And Dr Spencer's passage through this screening gap confirms this conclusion. As I stated before, the media has been complicit in this because there is yet a journalist with the wits to ask the direct and most important question –

‘Have any security procedures been put in place that would prevent another infected Ebola carrier like Mr Duncan to pass through airports and proceed on into the countryside?’

Instead, the questions are of such obtuse and fuzzy nature about diseased people getting in that Obama’s mouthpiece Josh Earnest can tell us that “there is no gap in our security procedures” because people are being “screened in Africa and again screened when they arrive”. That is a patent lie or the man is dumber than a 2x4. The incubation period and progress of the disease is known well enough that no passenger temperature readings would close any conceivable 'gap' through which Ebola carriers can daily enter by the tens if not hundreds. And this is just one of now uncountable number of areas and issues roiling the country in which the administration has shown itself to have totally failed in carrying out its constitutional mandates.

Let’s see how they quietly eat/deny their words as the feds attempt to play catch-up to follow the lead of states’ governors forced to take matters into their own hands.

[27oct14 update] Administrivia –Longtime reader and commenter Steve Frisch has threatened to sue for me for libel over an RR comment thread that he alleged has harmed him. Apparently there has been an ongoing comment thread between Mr Frisch and other readers that makes reference to a ’13-year-old girl’. Mr Frisch demands that I remove all comments in that thread. My first instinct was to fight the threatened suit since RR is an open forum about which Mr Frisch has been aware for years. As the record shows, Mr Frisch himself has also seriously libeled me and, possibly other commenters. But upon consultation and reflection I could not find an acceptable outcome to such a pissing match given all else that is going on in my life. So I have searched the comment streams under my recent posts, and have deleted all the claimed offending comments that I could find (would appreciate a heads up for any that I’ve missed). In the future you will be able to enjoy the wit and wisdom of Mr Frisch on other blogs more suitable for expressing his thoughts, and perhaps even through some sock puppets which periodically visit RR. We shall see.

But this experience adds to the growing string of unpleasant episodes that I have had with RR and my attempt to keep it an open and un-moderated forum that accepts the widest range of ideas and critiques from all sides of the ideological spectrum which may be expressed in an equally wide range of manners and modes. I maintain this blog for sharing and testing my own views, and as a service to the readers who regularly visit these pages. Fortunately my life is full but my years are limited. I have been advised by other readers that they very much enjoy the treatment and play of ideas on RR, but are put off by the mudslinging that too often goes on among certain commenters. I, like probably most other readers, do my best to skip over the mudballs. With the passage of time I have concluded that perhaps I have been too tolerant – occasionally reading but mostly trying to step over those cow pies is not fun. We live, we adapt – nuff said.

[Not inviting its continuance here, but I also call your attention to the rather voluminous, detailed, and ongoing Measure S debate between Ms Patricia Smith and Mr Don Bessee at 'Measure S, As It Is'. On that issue the dust has yet to settle. gjr]

22 October 2014

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 22 October 2014. Starting today, my commentaries have been moved from Friday evenings to Wednesdays’ 6pm news hour.]

In less than two weeks Americans go to the polls and vote in an important mid-term election to determine the extent and progress of the country’s ongoing fundamental transformation during President Obama’s last two years in office. The focus is the US Senate – which side will gain or maintain the majority. This comes at a time when the nation’s political Right and Left are further apart in what they believe than they were during the Civil War 150 years ago.

Back then the North and the South were much closer together in their beliefs about God, governance, economics, and even human nature. The South wanted to retain slavery for economic reasons since their economy was based on slave-powered agriculture. Yes, there was a fringe that also thought Negroes were less than human, but they were a small and uneducated minority. The majority knew slavery was not a long term solution and used the constitutional guarantee of states’ rights to attempt secession in order to pace their own economic transition. But that was enough to launch the then bloodiest conflict now recognized by many as the first modern war.

In recent decades Americans have again pulled into two very distinct and polarized groups. The difference today is that the dimensions, along which we see ourselves separated, are comprehensive in the sense that there are precious few beliefs which we still hold in common.

In governance the Left strives toward pure democracy as the way to organize society, and the Right adheres to republicanism, believing with our Founders that popular democracy paves the road to national suicide. The Left believes that a person reaches the loftiest heights of achievement as a member of an altruistic collective. The Right rejects public policies based on widespread altruism and promotes enlightened individualism in work, responsibility, risk taking, and commensurate rewards as the way to organize a beneficent society. The Left sees such a society as based on nothing less than rapacious greed.

21 October 2014

[Everybody hear the latest about Moonbeam convening a new water resources conference so that "California can again take the lead" as it has in matters of protecting the environment, climate change, and green energy - disasters all? My (no brainer) prediction is that the state will attempt to regulate and ration ALL well water so as to create further difficulties in trying to live outside of stack & pack communities. It's all for our own good. Can everyone spell 'Agenda21'? gjr]

The extraordinarily incompetent Obama administration is not done with us yet. We pray that it is only incompetency that has created the current trail of disastrous public policies to vex and punish us – it could be something much more sinister as some commentators have argued, and about which even RR has murmured. Without recounting the laundry list (already much counted on these pages) we now witness the daily progress of our government attempting to deal with the Ebola epidemic which has also touched our shores.

It is finally clear to all that the CDC did absolutely nothing since last spring to prepare America for the inevitable arrival of contagious Ebola carriers, save issuing self-congratulatory assessments of how prepared they already were with their business-as-usual prophylaxes against infectious diseases. When Mr Duncan got on the plane to come to the US, there was nothing in place to stop this Ebola carrier that would have passed muster with an intelligent layman, but the protocols satisfied our tax-funded public health experts.

Can you imagine watching that dreaded disease lay waste to three west African countries for months, receiving a constant stream of information and data about the characteristics and progress of the disease, and then responding with an airport questionnaire as the country’s first line of defense? It was not a military secret that during the first week or so of Ebola’s 21 day incubation period the patient is asymptomatic – no temperature, no bad gut rumbles, no nothing. And then asking someone with no symptoms who has paid good money to land in the US whether they have been exposed to Ebola is literally beyond butt stupid.

19 October 2014

[Mr Sauer is a retired lawyer living in Nevada City who currently serves on The Union’s editorial board. He drafted the following reply to a commentary by Ms Cheryl Cook, also a member of the newspaper’s editorial board, that was published in the 9sep14 issue of The Union. For readers having difficulty accessing Ms Cook’s commentary – ‘“To insure domestic tranquility” vs The Second Amendment’ – I have reprinted it below Mr Sauer’s reply. This post concludes with some of my remarks on Michael Savage’s just out Stop the Coming Civil War now on the best seller lists. gjr

20oct14 - Appended now are further developments that include Ms Cook's 20oct14 letter of resignation from The Union's Editorial Board. gjr]

Norm Sauer

Cheryl Cook’s recent essay describing the authors of our Constitution as “privileged, white, male property owners who protected slave owners . . . buying and selling family members. . ,” and continuing to condemn “. . . old people . . . able to recall every statesman from 238 years ago . . ,” but unable to appreciate the continued suffering of Blacks in the 1960’s, and that the real threat to domestic tranquility is the Second Amendment’s right of individuals to keep and bear arms, disparages America and its founding documents.

This rant is known as “deconstructionism” wherein nothing respected about our history remains untainted. The deconstructionist’s ploy is the de-emphasis, or even effacement, by posing a continuous critique, to lay low what was once high.

Cook’s essay tears down the old certainties upon which Western culture is founded and the foundations on which those beliefs are based. Sadly, I read her diatribe as an attempted erosion of our God-given inalienable rights, that “all men are created equal,” individualism, limited government, an educated and virtuous citizenry, and full republicanism.

I can only scratch my head with wonder at her contempt. What purpose does she seek to serve in her destruction of American Exceptionalism?

17 October 2014

Last night the local LWV held yet the latest forum (debate?) on Nevada County’s Measure S, the voter initiative to alleviate the claimed medical marijuana (MMJ) access problem. The venue was NC’s Rood Center with both pro-S and anti-S sides well represented. Readers recall that the county’s current Ordinance 2349 already permits and regulates the growing of MMJ. The overarching state law governing MMJ production, distribution, and consumption is known as Prop215.

The following aspects of Measure S were claimed, admitted, and/or confirmed by its proponents.

1. No one knows the scope of the county’s ‘MMJ problem’, and the pro-S people continue to insist that having any relevant data about MMJ, most importantly the number of legitimate MMJ users and how many of those have access issues, does not constitute information necessary to inform the vote on S. Using a widely accepted statistical method and data from Colorado and (statewide) California, RR's best estimate is that the county’s MMJ usership is in the 1,400 to 2,200 range. Without providing a basis of either method or evidence the pro-S people claim that the real number lies somewhere north of 20,000, or over 20% of the county’s population.

2. MMJ access difficulties in the county have been reported only anecdotally to Americans for Safe Access - Nevada County (the leading Measure S proponent).

3. Proponents of S admit that the measure’s purpose is also to expand the MMJ production industry in the county through large collectives that would enable the county to produce enough product for export, and become a state and national supplier of MMJ. (see 21oct14 update below)

4. Proponents of S want to expand the venues for grows from private residences (both indoors and outdoors), to ag lands, and also commercial buildings in business and industrial parks.

5. Proponents of S freely state that during the (6-8 week) fall MMJ harvest period that the needs of MMJ patients should trump those of nearby property owners and residents when it comes to odor and harvest/distribution related traffic.

6. Proponents of S claim that the state’s rapidly expanding MMJ market and distribution channels (see below) are too expensive and not sufficient to alleviate the claimed access problems of the county’s legitimate patients.

7. S is purposely vague on the details of the physical properties of MMJ grows, and instead relies on MMJ patients/growers to be good stewards of their crop, the land, and also good neighbors to nearby property owners.

8. S purposely omits MMJ grow enforcement provisions and calls for the county to draft follow-on enforcement and nuisance ordinances at its pleasure. (This invites to Nevada County the same statewide litigation storm that arose to challenge the passage of local ordinances required to clarify and enforce the equally ill-defined provisions of Prop215.)

9. Proponents of S stated that they purposely resorted to a voter initiative to define MMJ production and consumption in order to “prevent the county from coming in behind us” to make MMJ production and access more difficult in the future. Measure S will require another election to adopt a new MMJ initiative in order to change ANY aspect of the current measure. (The current MMJ county ordinance 2349 can be amended at will by the Board of Supervisors to balance the nuisance and need factors as they develop.)

While we are grappling with our own unknown and emotionally defined MMJ access problem, the world has moved on. MMJ is now becoming available from well-equipped dispensaries all over the state. Many of them provide delivery services that will soon let you order via a cell phone app (here). San Francisco, of course, leads the way in the ready availability of pot in all forms for all uses (here). Nearby MMJ dispensaries are located in Sacramento and Yuba City. No doubt others will be opening up soon at even more convenient locations – and then there’s the inevitable onslaught of recreational marijuana (RMJ) legalization that will be with us in a few years. I believe that voters should consider all these factors as they decide whether to abandon Ordinance 2349 in favor of Measure S.

The debate over Measure S, Ordinance 2349, MMJ access, and RMJ legalization has been covered extensively on RR in previous posts and their long appended comment streams comprised of various topical threads. Participants and contributors include the major proponents of both sides of the issue. I list and link the relevant posts below in order of their appearance –

[update] Just received an email with the following photo attached. This illustrates the intensity and chutzpah with which MJ legalization is being promoted across the country. This huge billboard (note size of truck) erected on Hwy 49 at the entrance to Grass Valley cost a bundle, and was made possible by the huge sums (as also reported here) that have been received by local pro-S supporters from MJ interests elsewhere. The sign's claim of a "Ban on Medical Cannabis" in the county is a patently audacious lie.

{21oct14 update] Ms Patricia Smith states in her 537pm comment below that she and ASA have never endorsed inter-state shipments of MMJ since that is illegal under federal law (as is all forms of MJ consumption in the United States). Therefore Measure S being silent on such transport should not be taken as endorsement of supplying out of state MMJ markets, MMJ growers doing this will be acting independently and on their own recognizance. Ms Smith stands by the billboard "ban" statement because 2349 does not allow MMJ growing on terraced slopes which she maintains is a constructive ban. Please read her own words and my response in the comments.

14 October 2014

[Time for fresh sand and fresh thoughts. I was pondering the sad case of SecState Kerry. What has that poor nitwit done since being appointed by Obama to push the national peanut ahead? A quick perusal of the man's record reveals nothing that would even give him a tie breaker with his equally accomplished predecessor. There is a possibility that I may have missed an accomplishment that his dual duufuses (duufusi?) - Psaki and Harf- failed to inform us of, or even some remote announcement out of presidential puppet Josh Earnest to burnish the man's image. Readers will no doubt set us straight.]

People of a shared ethnicity individuate tactically and aggregate strategically.

The future described in these pages over the last several years is coming true in spades. The prime forces acting in accidental synchrony are the rampant advance of technologies, and the profoundly incompetent Obama administration that now rules through a camarilla of perfidious bureaucrats. The result is growing global chaos and an underclass emerging from systemic unemployment accelerated by misguided rules that accelerate substituting machines for human labor. The real news is that this ‘news’ is finally being picked up in the mass media and grudgingly accompanied by the lamestream which has always been the public apologist and mouthpiece of the Left.

Here I want to bring together four contemporary examples of such lightbulbs going off to illuminate that small part of the public forum that is still made up of ‘people of information’, a delightfully appropriate expression that was introduced in the first half of the 19th century. These consist of the featured essay on the world economy in the 4oct14 Economist entitled ‘The third great wave’, a comprehensive report that recognizes the information and knowledge technology revolution which now succeeds its predecessors – the early 19th century Industrial Revolution and the unnamed electro-mechanical revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We see these waves of disruption and invention in a global context as reported by Stratfor’s Robert Kaplan in a major essay entitled ‘Super Chaos’ that brings together and focuses our attention on an historical confluence of worldwide disorder and mayhem that is missed by the auto-distracted masses. In all this there are still some like the leftwing political scientist William Galston of the Brookings Institution who sees slim shimmers of light in an otherwise darkening tunnel as espoused in his hopelessly hopeful 8oct14 WSJ piece, ‘How to Stoke the Middle-Class Comeback’.

My purpose here is not to drag the reader through the long laundry list of arguments that support the early revelations posted here, but simply to highlight the corroborations of an existential worldview that is uncomfortably ignored by most sitting politicians and world leaders.

The Economist strongly acknowledges the reality that was detailed in Tyler Cowen’s Average is Over (2013), George Gilder’s Knowledge and Power (2013), and Charles Murray’s Coming Apart (2012), all covered here in previous posts. Much data is presented on the growing unemployment problem in the developed world due to three driving factors – 1) government regulations making the hiring/firing of humans more difficult and expensive, 2) rapid dating of workers’ skill sets, and 3) the acceleration of technology, specifically in the surge of all types of smart machines and robots. The Economist sees that government is critical to solving and ameliorating all three factors by reducing red tape, spending more on educating redundant workers, and easing the establishment of smaller businesses that take advantage of new information and fabrication technologies.

12 October 2014

Last night Jo Ann and I attended the SoJ town hall meeting at the GV Elks Club. This meeting was announced here, and it drew a full house. The well-organized gathering was set up by the NC SoJ steering committee under the very able leadership of Eddie Garcia. I even noticed that Jim Firth, head of the NC Democratic Party and candidate for the GV City Council, was in attendance. Eddie later told me that he had personally invited Mr Firth to attend, and I commend him for his attendance (although I did notice that his participatory gestures did not exactly track the sentiments of the rest of the crowd).

The speakers – Messrs Mark Baird, Terry Rapoza, and ‘Red’ Smith – were again excellent and informative. The audience’s response was enthusiastic and frequent. The SoJ movement is all about the lack of representation that California’s northern counties suffer in Sacramento. Our state legislature is dominated by southern California and progressive coastal interests that are inimical to the welfare of the state’s rural and mountain counties. But a more complete treatment of the arguments for separating out the SoJ have been covered in these pages and are also available on the SoJ website here.

SoJ opponents have advanced a number of specious and erroneous arguments as to why pursuing such a separation is not only a fool’s errand, but will not work for a number of political, constitutional, and economic reasons. Most of these have been easily dispensed with on the SoJ website. The procedural one of getting the separation through Sacramento will probably be most difficult, but doable if the Democrats can be convinced of the win-win benefits from allowing the new SoJ. The federal approval should be pretty much pro forma with a Republican Congress.

But I do have a concern that I have not yet heard raised and which doesn’t deal with the feasibility of separation, or even the political and economic viability of the newly formed State of Jefferson. My question is about the political sustainability of a successfully launched SoJ. Let me explain.

10 October 2014

The dilemma of socialism is that it needs large masses of the ignorant and poor to stay in power. Socialists know that public policies which enable and empower the individual will grow the economy but doom collectivist governance.

Los Angeles gets a new national monument that President Obama will dedicate on his most recent fund raising trip through soCal. The huge land area covered is essentially all of the San Gabriel Mountains north of the greater LA area. The former national forest will be put into a permanent category of limited or no public use. Located next to where millions of people live, this takings is a poster child of Agenda21 in operation. Jo Ann and I spent much of our youth and family recreation days in those mountains. As a high schooler and college undergraduate I and my friends were often in those mountain canyons and ridge tops since we lived in the Foothill Blvd corridor right below the mountains. And within minutes from their homes, LA area families with picnic baskets or sleds and saucers would be enjoying themselves in summer and winter. Those accessible mountains were a godsend to rich and poor alike, and for generations a draw for people to move to California – where else could you ski in the morning and then spend the afternoon on a sunny beach? The LA Times today murmurs that some local leaders have had the temerity to opine their concerns that this federal takeover “will limit access” to this priceless recreation area. Sadly, Angeles National Forest RIP as Agenda21’s stack and pack corrals Americans into ever narrower corridors of access and mobility.

08 October 2014

The State of Jefferson movement continues along, and our Nevada County chapter of it is holding a town hall event this coming Saturday night (see below). Remember, the SoJ movement also gives those who feel that the northern counties have no representation in Sacramento an opportunity to leverage their voice – to attend and/or support the movement you don’t have to be convinced that the movement will succeed (yet), only that your voice will be heard in Sacramento. Give it a look.

And while we're at it, there are some other civic minded events that you might want to attend:

9 October - Congressman Doug LaMalfa and contender Heidi Hall will be at a LWV candidates' forum at the Rood Center 7-9pm.

10 October - Don Bessee and Patricia Smith will face off in a debate on Measure S broadcast on KVMR at noon.

RR reader/debater, musician, producer, KVMR news director, and friend Paul Emery is long known in Nevada County for his many talents and activities which keep us entertained and informed. This fall Paul is outdoing himself with a bevy of productions that promise to keep the county’s toes a’tappin’. I am constantly amazed how such a seemingly laid back guy can accomplish all that he does. This morning he sent out an email that details the various courses of the latest feast he is serving up in the coming weeks. Take note also that Paul now has a first class website that displays his wares. Here is how he tells it.

Nevada City Live - Fall 2014

Friends,

The beat goes on! This week we have a fantastic line-up at the Nevada Theatre.

Last year, author and poet Molly Fisk brought the house down with her performance during Nevada City Live. Her humor, wit, impeccable timing, astute observations and colorful storytelling is a joy to see in person! Don't miss her on Friday, October 10.

And don't forget Troubadours: Peter Wilson, Moe Dixon and Mountain John Hilligoss will reunite for a very special concert Saturday, October 11.

When not touring as Troubadours, Wilson regularly performs at Northern California festivals, concerts and nightclubs. He's been a featured performer at the California WorldFest, KVMR Celtic Festival and has opened concerts for headliners including The Band, Etta James, Jessie Winchester, and The Smothers Brothers. Dixon now divides his time between Oregon and Colorado and is considered one of the top solo artists in the country, for his unique finger-style and ragtime guitar. He's shared the stage with such familiar names as Phil Oches, Pete Seeger, Robben Ford, Buddy Guy, Doc Watson, Maria Muldaur, John Denver, and more. Mountain John was a fixture in the LA and Nashville music scenes, performing with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris and more, before moving to Pennsylvania to pursue his poetry.

Shows start at 8pm and tickets are $20. Tickets are on sale on at BriarPatch Co-Op in Grass Valley and Yabobo in Nevada City. Tickets are for sale for all shows through Vendini.

You can find more information on these shows plus the entire lineup on my new website at www.paulemerymusic.com

We still need volunteers for all shows. You can sign up for a show by sending an email to Robin Karistedt at robinkarlstedt@yahoo.com and she'll give you details.

06 October 2014

[I'd like to start this fresh sandbox with a bit of an admonition to those (self-centered?) readers who jump into the middle of a comment stream with a notion or a question that they think is unique, original, and not seen before either in the current comment stream, or in a multi-post treatment of the same subject (like currently Measure S). They do this without perusing the discussion which has been ongoing, perhaps, for several hundred comments, and then demand that their rehash of something long answered and dispensed with deserves a whole new treatment for their self-centered hubris. Many of us tire of this game, and not all take such forays as kindly as do I. My opinions are here for all to read as is my socio-political credo. If you want to make progress, reference what I have said and then demonstrate how it is weak or in error. That I will gladly defend, or if you are compelling, I will change my mind. Barn circling is not my favorite dance. As I requested of one commenter, 'Do your homework.'']

05 October 2014

Pro-S supporters and community leaders have been denying Nevada County voters the relevant data with which to decide on how to vote for the Measure S medical marijuana (MMJ) initiative. They have been unwilling to count the number of legitimate MMJ users in the county. Not only that, they maintain that such data is impossible to get, none of the voters’ business, and irrelevant to making a reasoned decision on how to vote on the issue in November.

Leading pro-S advocate Ms Patricia Smith, president of the local Americans for Safe Access chapter, has been asked by RR and other media (KNCO) people about the size of the county’s medical marijuana consuming population. Her estimates have ranged into the multiple tens of thousands in a county in which less than 100,000 people live. This commentator has argued that such numbers are a bamboozle on the voters and nowhere close to reality.

The data now issuing from Colorado’s experience with legalizing recreational marijuana (RMJ) use is very revealing and applicable to the situation in Nevada County. The just out November 2014 issue of Reason magazine contains a long and informative article detailing what has been happening with MMJ and RMJ in Colorado since voters legalized RMJ sales and consumption.

An interesting result was that consumption of MMJ did not plummet as expected after the legalization of RMJ, but actually increased due to cost factors. But that is not the point I want to make in this post. Colorado has no trouble counting and reporting its MMJ users. This May the total came to 115,210 as reported by Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment. Colorado has a population of about 5,250,000. There is no reason to think that Colorado’s lax MJ laws minimize the number of its MMJ users (both legitimate and frauds), so the ratio of Colorado’s users to its population – 0.022 – should apply to Nevada County’s 100,000 residents. This puts our county’s MMJ users into the vicinity of approximately 2,200 patients, not the tens of thousands claimed by pro-S promoters led by Ms Smith.

And isn’t it odd that an entire state can easily track its legal MMJ users, but our county with a handful of prescribing physicians cannot? This is a repeated call for the numbers relevant to our county's consumption of medical marijuana.

The bottom line here is that there is no epidemic of MMJ users in the county, and most certainly there is no shortage of supply for the arguably small number of the county’s MMJ patients as claimed by Measure S supporters. If my estimate is materially in error, it is up to the pro-S people to present evidence that supports that contention.

[6oct14 update] The comment stream to the above post was immediate, emotional, and irrational, yet nevertheless expected, valuable, and worthy of examination on its own merits.

First, readers who recall some of their training in science will recognize the line of reasoning that obtained the 2,200 estimate is based on what we in science call the Copernican Argument (see also the Copernican place, Copernican moment, Copernican part, …). Without rehashing the history, the Copernican Argument is a powerful starting point for estimations and explanations of existential phenomena about which few specifics are known. In the case of MMJ usage, the CArg is that Nevada County’s MMJ experience does not fall far from the aggregate of such MMJ experiences in American jurisdictions from which the Colorado experience is but a more fully known sample. And therefore, absent other data, the Colorado experience can in many ways serve as a proxy to estimating some of the same kinds of parameters that hold in our neck of the woods. Most certainly the ratio of MMJ users within a population is the most straightforward parameter that can be ‘transferred’ to estimate the approximate size of Nevada County’s similar population.

Of course, to those ignorant of such things, this all seems like mumbo jumbo or some kind of black magic. Be that as it may.

The second aspect of the comments that is worthy of note again illustrates the deep and (I maintain) irreconcilable chasm that exists between the liberal mind and other modes of thought and reasoning. Here we see a commenter, who we may assume typifies a ‘liberal thinker’, answer the legitimate demand for minimal data to support the adoption of Measure S by counter demanding a laundry list of MMJ related data (some ludicrous) from the opponents of S as some kind of argumentative pro quid quo. Not only that, but such data must be forthcoming before the pro-S faction even recognizes the need for knowing the approximate magnitude of the ‘MMJ problem’ the new Measure S is to alleviate.

The long known and reasonable sequence of such arguments has always been that when some party/parties propose a change to any established order/process/construction, then it is incumbent on them to provide the people of the established order with substantive arguments as to why their new way is better and should replace the old. But the modern liberal mind no longer recognizes such a protocol (another devastating result of Great Society’s educational system?), and seeks to change things simply on the basis of their say so, advancing the empty proposition that their new proposal will in some unknown way make things better, more equitable, more just, or more something. Examples of the fruits of such thinking over the last forty years abound in our land, and the insanity grows daily. Here we see just a small part of the wave of unreason washing over America.

[7oct14 update] Regular readers will be happy to know that RR got its moment in the sun about our coverage and voluminous debate over the Measure S initiative. We are prominently featured in the 7oct14 Union’s lead article on page one (here). For readers new to RR wishing to read the entire series on Measure S, I have collected the permalinks below –

[8oct14 update] The comments of pro-S worthies Messrs BradC and APatriot, starting with my 551pm comment and jumping to BradC’s 1050am, open a new front in the Measure S debate regarding the strong claim by pro-S that the purpose of S reaches significantly beyond the adequate supply and access of MMJ to ONLY Nevada County’s legitimate MMJ patients. It turns out that Measure S, through its lax provisions for MMJ grows and enforcemet, is also intended to launch a resurgent MMJ export business to the remainder of the state as allowed by existing state law.

Here I want to respond to the somewhat desperate and off-the-point responses from Ms Patricia Smith (322pm) and Mr APatriot (404pm). The quoted material is in their words, starting with Ms Smith –

“…you complain over numbers that are not substantiated and then you have the audacity to declare unilaterally that NC grows enough medicine to supply all the patients in California.”

My declaration was to make a point about the enormous amount of MJ grown in NC so that claims of the lack of MMJ supply in the county could be put in perspective. I did admit to being off the mark on the total amount, but that was not the point important to voters. I never complained about “unsubstantiated” numbers, just of their total absence and the humorous attempt to throw the CDC under the bus for Ms Smith’s obviously bad arithmetic or gross ignorance of the county’s population.

“The first thing our elected officials say when we bring up lack of access is ‘go to a dispensary in Sacramento.’ ”

If going to Sacramento is a hardship for MMJ users, then Measure S would have provided a service in specifying that such dispensaries can be opened up in Nevada County. Apparently it is not that big of a problem.

“What you refuse to acknowledge is that most of the marijuana being grown in NC is NOT medicine.”

Pattie, who taught you how to read??? I have proclaimed exactly the opposite in this debate cycle and for many years before that. Your campaign would do better if you gave your opposition credit for more brains. EVERYONE knows that Nevada County’s RMJ crop swamps its legal MMJ crop – please, get a grip. And no one in the anti-S camp wants legitimate MMJ users denied their product. Unfortunately, S does not provide for the local manufacture and convenient dispensing of all the variants of MMJ you describe. However, 2349 can be amended to do just that if you make a believable case for it (and yes, that will require numbers).

“One cannot ignore the number of patients that visit our local doctors who write MMJ recommendations. This would indicate a substantially higher number of active patients than you want to admit. Again, it is impossible to get a factually accurate number for many reasons, but mostly because there is no central registration collecting agency to verify these numbers. I'll leave the guessing games to you.”

A properly written S would have prescribed a “central registration agency” (the county’s health department) for the collection of such data from the county’s prescribing physicians. The data is available and easily collected, as I have pointed out numerous times. And the “guessing games” appear as such to you only because of your inexperience in the procedures used for estimation in all fields of science. Were you to continue in this enterprise of advocating public policy changes, I’d recommend getting familiar with them.

We continue with the revealing offerings of Mr APatriot’s 404pm –

“No George that is your conjecture, opinion and hallucination. …”

Have no idea what the man’s referent is.

“Only the No on S posse seems to be afraid of facts. You constantly ignore the reasons S is an improvement. You wanted reasons, I gave you sound agricultural practices, no response.”

No one has any idea of what facts the anti-S people are afraid of since almost no facts have been presented by the pro-S promoters. A dissertation about “agricultural practices” deserves no response since under 2349 the number of visibly healthy MJ grows in the county is legion. If S would call for zoning set asides for the commercial growing of MMJ, then we would be getting somewhere. But what S promotes is simply the ability for surreptitious growing of RMJ under the MMJ mantle. And, of course, you’re right that I do have only a layman’s knowledge of growing MJ picked up from various presentations on the topic. But that again is neither the point of S vs 2349, nor the salient factor to consider in casting your vote because it seems that everyone has cracked the code on growing MJ.

“You also seem to think the title Dr. makes you a medical expert, from the manner and content of your dosage claims.”

“How about you tell US how many times the B of S has met to adjust, revise and improve what exists. They haven't, they lied, and they continue to fall short.”

Had you paid attention, then you would know that I already did. 2349 is readily amendable, and has seen a number of amendments by the BoS (you can download them here). Measure S is not amendable, but requires another election in which voters will be presented another poured-in-concrete initiative to grieve over. The state’s voters passed such an initiative in Prop 215. And what it wound up doing was creating a deluge of (still ongoing) lawsuits across the state’s jurisdictions that in desperation sought to define what the proposition left unsaid or on which it was silent. Now the pro-S crowd wants to revisit that same plague on the citizens of Nevada County with a loosey-goosey replacement of a working and amendable county ordinance that defines the growing and use of MMJ, while it balances the nuisance concerns of the growers’ neighbors.

03 October 2014

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 3 October 2014.]

The upcoming vote on Measure S, the medical marijuana initiative, is raising many questions about enforcement as they affect private property rights. Measure S, if passed, would replace Nevada County’s existing Ordinance 2349 that prescribes how medical marijuana or MMJ may be grown and consumed in the county. To be clear, proponents of S are made up almost entirely of the county’s Democrat voting, leftwing or progressive contingent, and the anti-S people are primarily conservative and vote Republican.

As the election nears we hear of all kinds of charges and counter charges claiming misrepresentation of this or that provision of S or the existing 2349. In this brief commentary I’d like to focus on the county’s MMJ enforcement provisions as they affect property rights. First, we must understand that according to county counsel Alison Barratt-Green, both S and the existing 2349 are subject to identical enforcement provisions. In other words, enforcement policy and actions by the county will be affected by the outcome of the election only to the extent that their specific provisions prescribing MMJ grows and related nuisance factors differ.

Currently 2349 provides a number of civil protections to the cultivator and county that are not present in Measure S. These include the service of a legal notice, the right to appeal, and the right to a hearing. In turn the county is protected in so far as the county’s abatement costs may be recovered from the property owner/tenant if the violation is not brought into compliance by the MMJ cultivator.

Overall, according to County Counsel, the sheriff is guided by the 4th Amendment, and the further interpretation that to the extent that a violation can be seen from a location of public access – like a street or the sidewalk – then an ordinance inspection officer may enter the property with the same permission as is extended to the US Postal Service, PG&E or the UPS driver. If thereupon an ordinance violation is confirmed, then the inspection officer/sheriff is not precluded from making a full compliance check. Depending on the subsequent findings, the inspector will then leave because the medical marijuana grow is ‘in compliance’, or he informs the resident that the grow is ‘not in compliance’, and must be remediated to bring it into compliance. Such remediation may involve abatement or removing the marijuana plants. In every such case of non-compliance, the property owner/tenant is issued a Notice to Abate Unlawful Marijuana Cultivation.